Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes
Released: June 22, 2012
Game Length: 25 Hours
Grade: B
Development
What's New: There will always be some sort of change in perspective to each of the Lego video games Traveller Tales creates, but there is something drastically different when it comes to this game. No, I'm not talking about the new Exit to Windows option that foregoes the main menu even though that is a good thing to now include. For one, they decided to include an open world with full 360-degree camera rotation. It is eerily similar to how the Arkham games developed their condensed city that previous year! The second thing is the option to save your progress in a level. This is perhaps because the story levels move through more areas than any previous Lego game. This helps if something happens to your client or if you wish to take a break from the story. You can choose to do other activities and return to the level at another time. If that wasn't surprising enough, they went and hired full-on voice actors! Your ears aren't fooling you when you suddenly hear Rob Paulsen (voice of Yakko & Pinky from Animaniacs) shout out some lines as the Riddler. I knew something was weird after seeing an option to turn on subtitles in the menu interface.
Movies: The story content in the video game is phenomenal. There's plenty of surprises and twists in the plot to draw you into fully completing it. There's a good reason behind pouring all this passion into this aspect of the game: There is a movie version of the video game. No doubt they had planned to start up an entire line of Lego Batman DC Films from this one simple video game. There's something you should know: the events aren't told exactly like the video game. If I had to make a guess, 60% of the film is taken directly from the cutscenes that play in the story levels. The movie is only about an hour long and adds an event that happens in the middle of the game as a teaser from the very outset of the film. Some gameplay portions such as the vehicles roaming around Arkham Asylum are nicely done. Other extended flight sequences or areas that happen inside structures like the Ace Chemical Processing Plant get cut. They even stopped short of the boss fight that happens right after meeting up with the receptionist. Superman still gets weakened, but they take the bus instead of the sequence through the metro station. Though, there is a whole new subplot with the Joker scheming against Lex Luthor. The ending has also been adjusted where the robot is defeated by removing its power source, not by using a giant hyper cannon.
Podcast: With all this undue attention being diverted to the story portion of the game, the world aspect felt a bit tacked on. When researching on why this might be, I found an interview of the developers discussing a few things in Holy Game Development, Lego Batman. The first 20 minutes dives into the foundation of the series where they were given free reign on 80 years worth of material from radio broadcasts to comics. They were unsure how people would take the new voice acting but ultimately found the new standard that brought renewed life to their games. They include Danny Elfman's score from Batman (1989) and John Williams' score from Superman (1978) that plays each time you start flying with the Superman Minifigure. The one thing they had a problem with was adjusting how pedestrians and traffic behaved within the city. If you pay close attention to the background of the main menu of the game, or even the beginning of the film, you can see what could have been streets filled with cars and people. However, they decided in the end to simply create a "chaotic scene" with non-moving vehicles and panicked people running in all directions. This explains my experience when something didn't feel quite right while exploring the city.
DLC: There are 10 characters that are exclusive to consoles. This is pretty sad to have 2 DLCs of a pack of heroes and villains of some pretty big names not available to PC. The first level has a room dedicated to Zatanna, but she isn't available in the main game. Some of their abilities are pretty unique as well. Shazam & Black Adam are capable of shooting lightning!
Content
Collectables: There are a total of 250 gold bricks. Considering that you get one for each rescue, reaching full stud status, completing a level, and gathering all 10 minikits, this means that about 190 come outside the main story. It might be hard to tell due to there being no visible boundary lines drawn on the map, but there are 22 territories. Each area contains a boss, a purchasable vehicle, a key location highlighted as a white dot, citizens in peril marked as purple, and a good number of puzzles shown as yellow dots. The bosses all have a simple mechanic like spawning enemies (literally creating enemies that pop out of the ground like daisies). They will all repeat their one stupid line when you first discover them, when you inspect them, and when you fight them. Out of the 50 Citizens in Peril, 35 of them will need to be broken free from plants, unfrozen, or rescued from bad guys in the world. I'd say about 80% of the puzzles in the world will consist of you switching suits to reach a place, flying around and using heat vision on top of things, using a vehicle through checkpoints, or destroying five similar objects within a given time frame. The more uniquely designed puzzles will include traversing a maze, participating in all the things at the Amusement Park, taking control of toy vehicles, and riding the animals at the Gotham Zoo.
Mechanics
Cheat Prevention: Because the game assumes you are going to fly around the map at some point, they have decided to put in some mechanics to stop you from cheating the puzzles that are laid out. What do I mean by that? Assume they put down this route that requires you to jump up multiple platforms, put out a fire, clean out some chemical ooze, and reach the top of a structure. All that effort could then easily be circumvented by flying to the top. Besides, you can't enter the vast majority of buildings in the world anyways. So, (1) switching characters will remove your current suit. There is not an option to switch to a suit either. This makes the game much more difficult when the suits in Lego: Batman are treated as additional characters. This is brutal when you accidentally hold the Y-Button and are unable to cancel the swap. (2) Beacons will only allow you to switch to a specific suit. In the previous game, your current suit was "preserved" on the beacon when you received your new one. (3) Your friend will not be joining you up the building. (4) The conclusion of the puzzles will require one specific ability that's only available from the suit they offer (more information on those down below).
Suits: Much of the previous Lego: Batman game is still used and even perhaps improved a little bit in the sequel. You can still pick people up and throw them. You can still perform an ultimate combo ability. They removed the button prompt for the grappling hook and made the process automatic when you target while aiming with your batarang (or other ranged tools). However, they practically poured a ton of different things across the characters. So let's take them one at a time:
- Batman (Sensor Suit): Allows you to use X-Ray Vision on walls and "see" through people by turning them into skeletons when they are in your peripheral vision. It's one unique ability is the chance to turn invisible to get past security cameras.
- Batman (Power Suit): Allows you to shoot rocks that automatically home onto targets or those chosen while aiming. Because of this, you lose your batarang ability. Like Star Wars: Clone Wars, these count as "explosives" that destroy silver objects. You also gain super strength that allows you to "run over" objects, destroying them. It lets you pull orange levers as well, but you only need to hold the B-button instead of mashing it like seen in Lego: Harry Potter Years 5-7.
- Batman (Bat Suit): This suit comes with a two-by-one brick on your back that extends into a pair of wings to glide over cities. Your attacks are now converted to the ray gun that shatters glass with repeated strikes or one huge strike from a wide-range burst with the B-button.
- Batman (Electricity Suit): This acts like a Batman Hazard Suit that uniquely makes you immune to all electricity. It also comes with a battery pack that you can "charge" or "discharge" into stations when it is powered-up. He may even shock enemies in the air with his abilities.
- Robin (Acrobat Suit): This suit gives you a ton of unique things. You can double jump, strike the side of walls reminiscent to Lego Star Wars: Clone Wars, throw your pole into a hole in the wall (or at enemies), swing on various handles, or make... a giant hamster ball? This sphere allows you to use specific platforms to move objects around.
- Robin (Magnet Suit): The revised suit now has brighter, more neon-colored bricks to climb across. There is the added ability to use a magnetic feature to pull particular objects.
- Robin (Ice Suit): Now looking more like one of Mr. Freeze's henchmen, your suit will allow you to freeze all sorts of things. This still includes friends and foes alike, but the block of ice is now designed with actual Lego bricks. It allows you to pass through frigid air unharmed and shoot snowballs into puzzle-markers.
- Robin (Hazard Suit): This suit also has way too many unique features about it. You have a capsule that contains a limited supply of one liquid. By default, it gives you water that can be used to clean up chemical stains or fill up containers for puzzles. Along with refilling it from any water pool, you may choose to gather a chemical instead and shoot it into a marked capsule. It allows you to pass through hazards and chemicals unharmed. You may also sink to the bottom of water and move about. Instead of using your spray, this is the only time your weapon is converted to a batarang.
Abilities: So by the time you get around to finishing the story, you may be wondering which character is able to do that one thing that unlocks the collectables. There is no clear-cut answer to that question. It seems like they made it mandatory to use a bunch of them. So, let's evaluate them, starting with the more desired ones first and the ones just for fun at the end:
- Black Brick Interactions - the ability to break down black blocks is only offered by Lex Luthor. Any broken down black bricks can be reconstructed by The Flash.
- Marked Boxes - These are pretty clear, but there are a couple of boxes that require specific characters. The Riddler will open ones with a question mark while The Joker will open ones with his face on it.
- Flower Travel - Taken directly from the crew of the Flying Dutchman in Lego: Pirates of the Caribbean, Poison Ivy is the only person who can "warp" from one flower patch to another.
- Green Bricks - The story levels will occasionally have puzzles that require the use of Green Lantern's ring. I don't think a single puzzle in the world requires him. The only thing interactable are the missiles and hammers in the street that self-destruct when you create them.
- The Penguin's Penguins - Other than Batman's Power Suit, the only other thing that counts as "an explosive" to destroy silver objects is the little penguins you can launch as this character. There is one small callback to Lego: Batman where one must walk through an igloo to destroy Mr. Freeze's tank.
- Shoot Water - Besides Robin's Hazard Suit, Aquaman also has the ability to shoot water out of his trident like Lego: Harry Potter Years 5 - 7. He can wash away chemicals and clean off graffiti. Though sometimes, only auto-aiming works.
- Destroy Glass - Both Black Canary and Man-Bat can perform this action.
- Magnetic - Braniac and Cyborg can help out when Robin's Magnetic Suit isn't around.
- Freezing Water & Putting out Fires - Other than Robin's ice suit, you may also use Mr. Freeze. However, the other kryptonian characters can help: Clark Kent, General Zod, Superman.
- Destroy Gold Bricks - Speaking of aliens, anyone with heat vision can help with taking down gold bricks. Since Clark Kent and Cyborg can't fly, you may also choose General Zod, Martian Manhunter, or Superman.
- Toxic Immunity - Very rare will you need someone that can walk through chemicals, but Killer Croc, Poison Ivy, and The Joker are good auxiliary characters when Robin isn't around.
Vehicles
The Vehicle Problem: A large subsection of the game is centered around using various vehicles to get around. I don't know who was in charge of this department, but they did a sloppy job handling it. For some reason, the vehicles don't always appear when you get close to them on the map. Their spawn can range from on-time, a little late, dropped and bounced around, or not at all. I had assumed you would need to unlock a specific type of vehicle for a conveniently placed race. In reality, any vehicle can start a race. They added break lights to several of the land vehicles but failed to code them properly - they only work if you are decreasing in speed. This means that they turn off once you start going in reverse and turn on when you hit the gas. Not sure why you constantly sway your butt in the motorcycles even when it isn't moving. Most vehicles don't have anything special associated with them. The submarines don't go under the water. The police cars do not have sirens or flash lights. The mole digger doesn't go underground. There were very few with actual functions outside the machine gun and missiles for the story. I do like how the fire truck lets you use the hose. Harley Quinn's Monster Truck has a giant hammer that smashes both sides. The dodgem - the bumper car - shoots out electricity from its broken top. I'm not sure what the function of the power brick is if you can't use the horn on most vehicles. Lex Luthor's giant tech truck cost me 1 million... but it does nothing! It's so slow that a clown was able to prevent me from moving out of the parking lot.
Fun Vehicles: The good news is that there are a lot of vehicles to choose from. They all have a variety of speeds, turns, and maneuverability. Many of the ones you see in the street can be grabbed and used as well. These include bicycles, security vans, cars, and street sweepers. Any of the mini-kits you complete in the main story levels can be used! Just don't expect you to actually fit inside them all. A few will have their own moving parts, like how the radar van has its dish spinning while you're inside. Not counting the ones you can use in the general populace, there are 42 vehicles to unlock.
Miscellaneous
Mechanically Challenged: I've touched on a few problems when it comes to the vision they included in this game, but I wanted to make a section that covers some of those more obvious issues. The biggest one: flying isn't done right. There's something wrong when you have to stop and look up or down for a couple seconds before your character can move. It just doesn't work. Batman Radar and Ghost Studs can only help so far. One problem I noticed was that the places marked with gold bricks were not where the puzzle started but where it ended. However, a mini-map or a highlighted beacon of light would have made marking locations much easier to navigate. You can't swim in the open ocean. This drove me crazy because you needed to jump onto a boat to purchase, use, and switch characters without stumbling into the water. You can't move while the game saves. Watching guys beat an invulnerable superhero for five seconds is funny, less so when they beat down all the other ones. Aiming at things can sometimes require a specific angle. I can't tell you the number of times I've tried breaking down black bricks or building up green ones only to watch them fall apart halfway through the process because of where I'm standing. If I'm starting the process, it should be able to finish it. Your AI is dumb. I know this sort of is the standard with the Lego games, but it has to be said when you watch your ally get beaten down by thugs time and time again.
In the Details: Just because they added so much didn't mean they left out some creative details. With new voice work, enemies will shout out "get him" when they spawn and point in your direction. Alfred's assistance can be modified in the main menu. They added new sequences where you don't have to worry about where you are headed. Like in those old Time Crisis arcades, all you have to worry about is aiming at the targets in front of you. While general characters will have some common upper-cut ultimate move, few will have special moves like Superman spinning a man or Batman (Power Suit) will wind up one arm and barely touch him with his other. The Joker robot is awesome and much better built than the one in Lego: Batman. Harley Quinn is quite unique with her double jumps, twirls, throwing her hammer out, and using the mallet against enemies. In fact, many characters have their own ranged weapon that can be used like a batarang. Idle animations are still pretty decent. While some actions are a bit bland, Vicki is a prime example of one who will take out a notepad to write on it or a black camera to snap a photo.
Summary
Review: I describe Lego Batman 2 as one of the most pivotal moments of the series. The developers clearly tried to make a hundred different things stick. The biggest part of the game's success lies in adapting a very compelling story with some awesome voice actors. I personally liked how they diversified the animated version just enough to make what happened worth watching a second time. Almost every single other element in the game is at their rudimentary level. The concept of flying around is extremely cool, but it will take them another few tries to get the control scheme done right. The open world aspect is awe-inspiring with a more realistic Lego version of Gotham, but it feels extremely hollow without working vehicles, engaging boss fights, or more interesting puzzles. Only a few territories actually felt unique like the amusement park, botanical garden, or the zoo. The rest felt like carbon-copies of the same rectangle buildings you can't go in with a water boundary around the city you can't swim in. I'm happy they included an overhead map and functional guide system. The puzzles are also pretty decent even if most of them test your knowledge of the suit system. I think at the end of the day I hoped to see a nice story and a great open world. At least one of those two things ended up being true.
3-1-2023